For their latest work, Pulse of Tala, Anjika collaborated with Mercury Award winning musician Talvin Singh. 'A training in classical Indian art - Singh’s in tabla playing, and Boonham and Subramaniam in Bharata Natyam – alongside a particular British Asian sensibility, is perhaps the common ground between the three.'

‘I was walking down Oxford Street a couple of weeks later, and there was Talvin Singh crossing the road. I don’t usually go up to people in the street, but I thought: this would be a missed opportunity!’

Chance or destiny? Mayuri Boonham, one half of dance duo Angika, had been thinking about a musical collaborator for their new project Pulse of Tala. ‘What about Talvin?’ suggested her dance partner Subathra Subramaniam. Mercury-Award winning, chart-busting, groundbreaking, breakbeating musician and DJ:, Talvin Singh.

ANGIKA, the new choreographers in residence at The Place, are a leading British Indian dance company and their work is committed to regenerating the rich vocabulary of classical Bharata Natyam dance with a contemporary approach. BHAKTI, their new work is powered by the concentrated vitality and sculptural geometry of ANGIKA's dance. ANGIKA communicate through BHAKTI a startlingly powerful and imaginative interpretation of the beauty of the human experience of devotion.

Bhakti is performed to an original music score by India's leading exponents of electronica, MIDIval PunditZ (their music featured in the critically acclaimed film Monsoon Wedding) whose skilful synthesis of classical South Indian and contemporary music drives BHAKTI.

ANGIKA, the new choreographers in residence at The Place, are a leading British Indian dance company and their work is committed to regenerating the rich vocabulary of classical Bharata Natyam dance with a contemporary approach. BHAKTI, their new work is powered by the concentrated vitality and sculptural geometry of ANGIKA's dance. ANGIKA communicate through BHAKTI a startlingly powerful and imaginative interpretation of the beauty of the human experience of devotion.

Bhakti is performed to an original music score by India's leading exponents of electronica, MIDIval PunditZ (their music featured in the critically acclaimed film Monsoon Wedding) whose skilful synthesis of classical South Indian and contemporary music drives BHAKTI.

ANGIKA performed at Robin Howard Dance theatre 22 March. BHAKTI was the work presented and is a new work created for five dancers exceptionally experienced in classical Bharatanatyam dance. The concept, choreography, and Artistic Direction of BHAKTI is by Mayuri Boonham and Subathra Subramaniam.

The work takes place in an open stage space with no wings and a grey floor. The floor with the black sidings is a perfect setting to emphasize ensemble formations and lighting states created by Aideen Malone. The beginning ensemble work employs turned out deep knee bends and lunges to the side while the dancers arranged in lines flowed forward. The opening dance phrase is composed of perhaps five gestures with some phrases resolving into tableau. There are harmonious, articulate dance phrases with hand gestures and arms that lead to the downstage corner of the stage. There are several counterpoint phrases and multiple rhythmical occurrences in feet and spatial patterns that compliment the graded intensity of the music by MIDIval PunditZ. The musical accompaniment by MIDIval PunditZ with its contemporary club mixes and classical Indian music layered the performance landscape with multiple contrapuntal sensibilities. The dancers, Noorjahan Begum, Suba Subramaniam, Gayathri Vadivelu, Mayuri Boonham and Anusha Kedhar were reserved and so austere they seemed chilled even while dressed in orange, red and black and speeding across the stage with intricate foot work and leaps. Malone’s lighting design of sequences of white and blue added its layer of austerity that changed with warmth of amber light for a section of movement with jumps, turns and floor work.

As quoted from the program notes BHAKTI means devotion but what this says about the dance is embedded in the performance skill of the artists more so than the outward manifestation of movement, staging and lights. One believes from watching the dancers that an underlying devotion to some cherished sensibility is at work here. ANGIKA do not fuse Bharatanatyam with other movement vocabularies or alter the sensibilities of their classical technique. Other than its presentation in contemporary dance theatre, ANGIKA believe artistic licence through immergence and discipline in the form is the means to their successful dance making. ANGIKA’s contemporaneous practice of classical Bharatanatyam dance extends from its spiritual Hindu heritage. BHAKTI is a contemporary dance because of its adjustment to the performance space but its absolute adherence to the movement vocabulary ie body design and associated harmony in composition of these designs gives this non literal presentation a particular quality. There are three modes of expression for Bharatanatyam: nritta being an arrangement of rhythmical and repetitive elements, natya being drama or story telling expressed through a language of gestures, poses and mime and nritya being a mixture of both nritta and natya. BHAKTI seems overwhelmingly nritta even with its title that alludes to a metaphor. Bharatanatyam for this dance work is a theme from which the dancers have made variations. The dance though is still recognisably Bharatanatyam and exciting for its devotion to the code of classical Indian dance.

-------------------- THEA NERISSA BARNES

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corrival Moderator Member# 1841

posted 29 March 2005 09:03AM

Thank you so much Thea Nerissa Barnes for your review. We love to hear about all types of dance and your reviews are insightful and descriptive. Again thank you. -------------------------------------------------

In this hypnotic performance, Angika dance company gives Bharatanatyam - South India’s classical dance form - a contemporary makeover, blending it with MIDIval PunditZ’s score of fusion electronica. It works like a dream.

On a bare stage, five female dancers, wearing Gabriella Ingram’s golden-yellow pleated tops and wide-legged pants, demonstrate the variety of steps and precise hand gestures that characterise this form of dance.

Ether exudes a slightly high-flown air. The women gaze inward or look up and out as if at the heavens. Form-hugging gowns lend them a goddess-like glamour. The lighting designer Aideen Malone contributes to the mood via glowing, Rothko-like coloured backgrounds.

Grace, mystery and metaphysical power come together in Ether, an intriguing and adventurous new work from the Angika company.

Angika uses the traditional disciplines and classic vocabulary of Bharatanatyam dance. Its choreographers Mayuri Boonham and Subathra Subramaniam, who also dance, give the form an intellectual clarity and a contemporary artistic vision.

To echo Thea Nerissa Barnes sentiments: Indeed, Angika represents a very specific aesthetic of contemporary bharatanatyam choreography, but this does not automatically mean that the results of their vision equals contemporary dance.

There are obvious aspects of the production that result in contemporisation of the bharatanatyam artform: the lighting, costumes and music. There are sublter ones too in the use of experimentation with unusual body facings, levels, dancers' spacing, spinal alignments, and the body becomes more multi-dimensional as a result. Facial expressions are more naturalised to the westernised eye. And, yes, nritta is the overlying structure, harnessing the form of the choreography of both "Ether" and "Bhakti". There is mood and atmosphere gallore, allusions to thematics, entities, associations, but no storyline that can be solidly pinned down. Speaking personally, Angika's defining differentiation from other bharatanatyam performances I have seen is that the dancers are not bharatanatyam dancers being bharatanatyam dancers, they are dancers being bharatanatyam. This is wonderful to watch and absorbingly beautiful. Their statement of non-narrative, non-personality and non-politicisation is a strong statement in itself.

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